I can agree on most points.
Its a pity we can't fight Schaffa on the WCS.
Regarding Multi Accounting: (Alts = Multi Accounts)
It is a problem and the solution of loot reduction is not a good one.
Before the loot reduction teamwork was real. Players jumped to the front together to shoot bases together. All that is mostly dead now. Because if a big player helps out the loot reduction kicks in very quickly.
Some alliances play with excessive Multi Accounting. We as Project chose a middle ground. That does not shut it off completely. The focus is on the player and their qualities first and foremost.
Unfortunately the use of multi accounts is very fundamental in this game. And they are used on so many levels to fix design problems of this game of the game mode. Here is a list of where Multiaccounting is used:
1. Early game Layout reservation: You only have one base and it has a very big impact on your account if you either have to stay back with your base or have to pick a shitty layout for your base 2. Because if you don't protect your layout, then chances are high that a random 7 days bubble account will sit right on top of it and if you are lucky you can claim it around base 3.
=> Possible fix: Eliminate the layout search and let players pick from a list of suited layouts for various purposes. Power layout, Tib layout, Cash layout etc.
2. Early game territory security: The best strategy for growth is to not blow your CP on small camps early on. But that slows your growth during the first few hours. What happens if you do that is that there are less experienced players who shoot camps, crowd and cut you off the front line.
3. Spy Accounts: Not necessarily in the enemy team, but its enough to jump around the opponent and take CNCopts.
4. PVP Territory: In PVP if the battle is not all the way one sided, Alt accounts are used to secure territory to prevent/hinder enemy movement.
5. POI securing: On Forgotten attack worlds you can't hold POIs with cash bases early on. Alt Accounts are being used to hold POIs that are in higher waves.
6. Pre-Shooting of bases: Many players (especially NOD players) use Alts to soften bases. This has various scales. Some only use it to overcome the very weak early game that NOD has, some just use it for their alliance to grind bad bases early on, some keep an alt or two for a long time and very few players play a bigger number of alts for a long time.
I am all in for banning Multi Accounting from the game, but we need solutions for things like layouts.
And as far as I know there is no bigger, competitive alliance which does not use Alts for all these purposes. Preshooting surely to a different degree, but every major team does it.
Preshooting is impactful, but not a dominant advantage. On strong days the few players who use alt accounts, kill about 3-4 bases more in total across the entire alliance. The rest of the difference is simply the much stronger average player strength compared to other groups.
To correct a few statements:
"We won the WCS 2017 against unfair enemies who started locking (glad it is 4 years later fixed :D) during war, when they recognized they are weaker."
WCS 2017 was the server where Ultimate, Mara, Schaffa and Dragonclaws made a Gentlemans Agreement where we agreed on not doing a number of things, including lockdown alts and preshooting of bases.
And it were not the "unfair" opponents who broke the agreement. The agreement was broken after a few weeks into the server when Schaffa command, namely Koegy, used other accounts of players who stopped playing the game, to preshoot bases. The fact is well documented and proven.
The start of lockdown PVP is a little more difficult. There was an independent russian group playing on the server, who attacked Mara and used lockdown alts. Lockdown alts were also used to defend against the attackers back then. They were not part of the agreement and we only took them into Ultimate, after Schaffa broke the agreement and both Mara/Schaffa refused to take actions.
In center PVP both sides used lockdown alts at equal scale. And yes it is very good that this is fixed now.
Its also cheap to criticise that strong players group together for a WCS. Thats the core of competitive gameplay and I'd be surprised if Schaffa wasn't built on similar principles ;-) Or how do you explain the recruiting of strong international players into a purely German group and the resulting demotion of players to wings? Schaffa has always been a competitive alliance and getting strong players to play with you is a fundamental principle.
Project was formed to win the next WCS. We all boil with water and we did not bring this group together with the goal to have no challenge. We wanted to win the WCS and hoped for a strong challenge with a lot of PVP on the WCS.
And after all - both Schaffa and Project uses/used alts in all facets. There are no innocent sheeps on the field.
The German community in this game was very dominant for years, but players from other countries combined are stronger. On past WCS international groups mostly failed to a lack of coordination and communication. Which is a problem we have solved now.
The difference is that Project has spent the past 1.5 years to grow, train and build up an international group that is strong enough to have good chances on a WCS while the German groups mostly degenerated and relaxed on past victories.
From what I know about the WCS 2019 as well as the 2017 WCS both victories were well deserved from your side, but claiming that opponents were unfair is just cheap. You broke the agreement first. Thats a fact and its well documented. We were quick to do the same since no consequences came from breaking the agreement except a loss of honor and integrity.
Nothing is speaking against a new gentlemans agreement for the upcoming WCS, but this time we need real consequences in the agreement. The trust that you stand to your word is gone.
A note on the game mode:
There are pro and cons for both modes.
Morale worlds take much longer and OP farming is very dominant. Basically farm a level shoot a level. For me the time efford of a morale world makes it unattractive. On a non-morale world you can simply login in the evening, spend a few hours on one base and you are done for the day. On a morale world you need to shoot multiple bases per day. Jump, shoot jump again, shoot again and so on. That requires not just longer online times, but also spread around the entire day. Also OP farming gets very boring over time.
Biggest downside of non-morale worlds are the suicide jumps, since you can't build a defense early on that holds against forgotten attacks.
I would like to see a blend of the two modes. Morale is not bad itself, but make it softer. Let it start if you hit a base thats 12 levels above your offense level.
If @EE_Elephterion is reading this: There are probably settings for a new world that are easy to adjust and don't take a lot of efford to implement. I am sure we can work out a new setting that would be refreshing to play.
Bruellhusten
P.S.: I am almost certain this game is not a cash cow. Having knowledge about server and staff costs, my estimate is that the game is still profitable, but not by a big margin. I'd assume its something around 250-300k yearly expenses for the game and ~350k income. And that is assuming that Ele only gets very limited time to work on cncta.